Which Kurugaya you mean the one from her True ending or Normal ending?
The normal ending. We’re not supposed to talk about what happens in the true ending here because it’s post-refrain.
Oh right.Well i think it’s same Kurugaya as from common route. It’s just she did eventualy tried to conffes to him,but she couldn’t. It’s realy hard to discuss this since her other ending is post refrain.
I feel the need to make an assertion. There’s been a lot of talk about this not being a real ending and there being a true ending you have to find. I feel like these expectations are misleading and will lead people to stop thinking about this route.
You have read the true ending. All that remains is a small bonus scene if you come back later.
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I should clarify here. No doubt this is the ending, and pretty much all of the Yuiko content is right here, not hidden away beyond some future unlock… However I believe it’s hard to cover that specific section of the VN beyond what I’ve already said about it without falling into spoiler territory. Having seen the following content, it’s impossible for me to not view the single-route experience as incomplete. It needs refrain, that’s the point. This is a story that, in some regards, has been put on hold, and Yuiko’s final words echo that.
I do love this ending. Looking at the route individually, it’s exactly my type of ending, and 5 years ago I might’ve been able to judge it as an individual. My thoughts on Yuiko’s route are far too occupied with the greater ideas of Little Busters’ mechanics, because everything else feels like old news now.
Nevertheless, there’s nothing notable people could think of now that they couldn’t think of in some weeks time once we get to refrain. We’re not denying thought, just delaying judgement of it. Pretty fitting if you ask me.
Yuiko without Refrain is like Moon without Terra imo.
Disagree. There’s plenty you can say about this route without requiring any future information. The hundreds of posts on this thread prove that.
I… think you missed the point.
We’ve spoken a bunch about the route as a whole. The only part that future content is inhibiting is clarification and follow-up on the final moments… Largely because anything that could be said about them is soon-solved theory.
Putting aside my feelings of the validity of endings as “true” endings, I’m a bit confused because I never once felt people had expectations for the post-refrain scene…
I tried looking back to put it into context and I guess the confusion starts from here:
(gee, thanks taka 
)
The context spurs much from talking about Kurugaya’s own personality. It kind of ties in to @machelmore’s question:
And, putting this into context, I’d say the additional scene (which they are adamant about calling the true ending) actually does contribute to this topic, very much so. It may or may not solidify the answer to that question. I don’t think people are dissatisfied about the route as a whole without the “true ending” (except maybe @Tidulimar ? though I don’t know where he picked up the idea). So if I had to clarify something it would be:
The “true ending” is only an additional few lines of text that appear after you finish refrain and replay her route. It adds an additional scene and does not change anything from what you have already read. Though it may change the way you view Kurugaya as a character.
Pardon if I have spoiled the surprise but for your own well-being I felt this disclaimer would be in order, so as to, as Aspi puts in, prevent people to stop thinking about this route.
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As for my thoughts on this route, I really love it. Sure, it leaves you with a lot of questions, but even on the surface level there’s a lot to love. It’s not very often that we see a Key game’s heroine route end in an unapologetically bad ending. There’s a lot of value in that.
Talking about Kurugaya’s character, one thought I have is that I really don’t believe she’s emotionless like she claims. We know that many people in her past have accused her of being emotionless; I believe she has internalised those assertions into a belief about herself that may not necessarily be accurate. My interpretation of Kurugaya is that she has no internal drive. When it comes to herself, she can’t feel happy or sad or anything, and because she’s always had difficulty making friends due to her atypical emotional expression, she doesn’t have anybody but herself in her life. Her single motivation became the pursuit of colour in her otherwise grey world. Enter the Little Busters. Meeting these strange people, coming to befriend them, developing attachments to them, is what caused her to begin feeling the same emotions as everyone else. When it comes to her friends being bullied, or her relationship with Riki, she can begin fully experiencing the vivid spectrum of emotions that had been so unknown to her, because those people became her driver to inspire those reactions in her. Up until then, life was a game to her, a game she’d mastered. But now that she’s been introduced to something so foreign, so dazzling to her, she wants to protect it. Her wish was granted, but now that she has it she doesn’t want to let go. The tragedy of the route is the fact that the world itself won’t let her hold onto the treasure she just found.
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Bit out of context. I’m correct out of context as well, but still…
That comment is in relation to a conversation chain about a single cg and a single line of dialogue, because it led to a question that can be “answered” using true ending content (and is otherwise a question of fan fiction more than anything else.)
Despite all that, and despite the scene in question having such little to show beyond teasing a further conclusion, I did in fact explain how the scene presents the change of Yuiko.
Even if I believe there’s nothing of value to say about the scene except “wait for after refrain” I still covered it as a bookend to a running theme, which is to say I considered it an ending to a certain degree.
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Oh yay I’m close to catching up with the bookclub now!~ Kurugaya is the love of my dreams (get it?) and I really love her route, despite some glaring flaws.
Before I talk about that, the choose-a-Classical-piece-that-suits-the-heroine gimmick. This one I’m choosing for funny reasons: Franz Liszt’s famous nocturne, Liebesträume. I’m going with the third one because it’s the most beautiful yet the most technically demanding, quite in line with Kurugaya’s beauty and intelligence. Also because the title literally means Dreams of Love lmao.
For the route itself, this post is going to be more of a review than a reflection, because a lot has already been said about the themes of this route, and I don’t think I can provide any additional insight on that at the moment.
As I said, I really love this route, but I feel the need to point out its most glaring flaw. The central conflict about the dream ending makes a lot of sense with additional context provided by Refrain, but within the route’s own context, it felt too vague and too intangible to generate any sort of convincing tension. Key sometimes love using “end of dreams” scenario as the center of conflict, but without anything tangible and within the context of the route that supports it as a conflict, it’s hard to get anything out of it. Not to say that it’s unrealistic, but it didn’t really quite work for me.
((Plus I also need to say that the whole sekuhara thing with Kurugaya does not, and will never sit well for me. 
))
But you know what, screw that, because Riki and Kurugaya’s relationship is just amazing. It’s hard to find a Key route where the couple dynamic felt this equal. It’s extremely common for Key to write about boy saves girl -> boy learns in the process, and when it’s put in the context of romantic relationships, it’s easy for the dynamic to become unequal. But in Riki and Kurgaya’s relationships, both of them really grow together as they become closer – Riki found the strength to face forward against all odds, while Kurugaya found the emotions she has longed for.
Along with how their relationship developed oh-so-naturally, I just loved the moments where it does away with gender norms; you know I love that kind of thing. It’s not exactly perfect in that regards (and I don’t really read Key VNs for genuine exploration of gender issues), but there are scenes where Kurugaya suggests that Riki doesn’t have to act masculine in their relationship, and they’re great.
So yeah, I may be giving this route merely a solid 4, but this is definitely my favorite heroine route in the so far. 
Side note: So Kurugaya’s theme often has the title of “Capriccio,” which is pretty weird but interesting. A Capriccio, or Caprice, is a word often used in many different contexts, but they often refer to really lively pieces. Sometimes, they’re just used to describe the style to which a piece is played, like Rondo a Capriccio (it’s the Rage over a Lost Penny that Kurugaya referenced at some point), or they’re actually names for pieces, like Paganini’s Caprices (here’s the infamous #24). Notice how wild and lively and intense they both sound.
The name makes a bit of sense with Kurugaya’s character theme, but I still don’t know why she would refer to her in-story composition, the melancholic Untitled, a Capriccio. Meanwhile, I can definitely see why Kurugaya is associated with Caprices – she’s not exactly wild, but she’s a lover of all things fun, and she has a strong personality, so there’s that. It may also be due to how technically demanding Caprices can be, and I can see how that matches with Kurugaya’s talents. I can get behind that.
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I suppose you could also argue that this is irony. Kurugaya, who only truly understands the meaning of fun and life after joining the Little Busters, plays such a melancholic piece and calls it a Capriccio to reflect who she used to be.
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Oh boy I just finished the route, and I must say I’m rather confused. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it though, on the contrary. So apparently they were stuck in Kurugaya’s dream from which she will awaken after some time and then everything that has happened will be forgotten. I’m not entirely sure what was the trigger of the dream (was it her falling in love with Riki?) or if it was something else. My mind is all over the place now so it’s probably best to read some parts again to get a better understanding of things.
Kurugaya is my favourite character so far, onee-san’s little schemes and her slightly twisted personality are hilarious. She never gave me the impression of lacking emotions before, but I suppose that was mostly the case from before she met the Little Busters. She does always seem calm and collected though, which makes her one big outburst such an impressive moment in the route (honestly, these 2 bullies can go to hell) and I lost my composure for a little bit there haha. Riki thought he could endure the bullying long enough to make them bored and give up, but it was a little bit naive.
I also liked how Riki’s and Kurugaya’s relationshop developed and I thought they complemented eachother very nicely. Maybe I’m partial because I like onee-san so much but they both seemed to be able to help eachother with their problems and their interactions in general were just very enjoyable to see.
The whole “Operation Love-Love Hunters” part was amazing by the way, it was so entertaining. All the members of the Little Busters are awesome, I’m loving them more as I progress through the routes and I have yet to get to Refrain.
I’m thinking I might have a better understanding of the whole time loop thing after reading Refrain and unlocking the other Kurugaya ending, I think I will come back to this topic at that point and read all the replies (there’s much behind spoiler tags at the moment).
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Ahhh reading this again finally made me realise how much I like Kurugaya. I had forgotten over the years and it’s come back to me now.
The first half of the route was so much better than I thought it was. Muh boys and muh little busters just having a great time. The romance and contrast of personas that Kurugaya has is just wonderful. Their relationship is fairly normal and very satisfying to read.
I can appreciate some of the flaws people have pointed out in the latter half of the route. I just really love the romantic simplicity of selfishly wanting something so much you bring the world down around you.
I already forgot half the things I wanted to post about. Oops. Maybe because it took me months to get back into reading… Maybe the podcast will jog my memory.
(Refrain) I think the latter half of the route really has value if it’s experienced as a later route. I understand most of Aspi’s reasoning for the agreed route order, but Kurugaya last really enhances the latter half of the route. Having the most magical and confusing (for some) route at the end can mean it’s still fresh in your mind as you get more context for the route.
There’s a huge amount of foreshadowing too obviously.
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Finished Kurugaya’s route and at the moment she or Kud is my favorite heroine, I love her perverted antics and how she manages to one up everyone (besides Komari).
Although unsurprisingly Kurugaya’s route left me with a ton of questions. From what I remember reading for clues and hints about what is up with that ending while also avoiding refrain spoilers is every route involves Riki growing stronger as a person and the heroine coming to terms with some past turmoil and near the end there’s a white screen with black text over it. But in Kurugaya’s route pretty much everything happens extremely early into her route.
So I wonder when Kurugaya said her “dream” was ending and soon their memories will be gone that it was a somewhat meta thing going on. In which Kurugaya, and probably Kyousuke too from what Riki implied, is aware that due to her story with Riki having technically reached its conclusion the world will soon regress back to May 13th, or a new game save where she and Riki will have lost all their memories of their love and time together.
I’ll probably get the answers to most of my questions once I finish refrain and it’s probably not going to be something too meta like that and probably more fantasy based but was still fun to theorize. Either way, I just really want more Kurugaya screen time in my life.
Currently playing through Komari’s route and pretty interesting that Riki can ask Kyousuke or Kurugaya on the subject of dreams, and when you try picking Kurugaya Riki is unable to reach her via phone call like several times in her own route.
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Rereading part of Kurugaya’s route with the context of Refrain was pretty eye opening and sad on how much more inner turmoil she had than was I was expecting. At first I thought she didn’t want to end the dream because she didn’t want to give up her first deep emotional connection but it was much more than that, because by loving Riki she ended up developing regrets rather than resolving them like the other heroines. Kurugaya regularly said how she had trouble having emotions and she doesn’t seem to have many regrets from her past because any obstacles she had she just bulldozed through. So I think that due to her mindset and life of few regrets she might’ve been able to accept her demise to a much greater degree than everyone else. However, when Kurugaya falls in love with Riki the dream world does the opposite of what it was meant to of helping everyone come to terms with their ends and she begins regretting that soon her love will be gone. Alternatively, maybe the world worked as intended and helped Kurugaya realize the emotions she wanted to feel because you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. So having a relationship with Riki while right at the edge of it ending made her realize how precious it all was. Either way, I think it was a beautiful and deep crisis of whether it’s better to love and lost or to not love and have no route at all. Either way, it was a beautiful crisis of a character about to accept her death only to tragically become unable to accept it right at the end. I was surely not expecting such a profound and deep route from the hilarious and perverted onee-san but it was an amazing read the second time despite how confusing the first read was.
My main complaint though is that the new epilogue was definitely not enough for me as a wrap up to Kurugaya’s route. I just needed more
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Man I enjoyed this route a lot more than I expected and unlike the other routes I really feel I have to write down my thoughts on this one. (disclaimer that this post is disorganised as F and apologies in advance.)
At first when reading Kurugaya’s scenes in the common route, although I slightly enjoyed her interactions with Riki and the other main cast, I rolled my eyes and said ‘Ah of course there’s going to be this larger than life character, with possibly an abusive backstory, that teases the MC but actually wants to bone him etc etc’ to complete the archetype list, which of course in retrospect was a very short sighted assumption.
But now upon completing this route I have to say that I’m glad my expectations were completely subverted (although I doubt the writer of this route was trying to go for the outright ‘let us subvert expectations’, but someone as short sighted as me had his expectations subverted) and I managed to really relate to Kurugaya and her problems.
Like @MagusVerborum and @Zosonte I didn’t feel there was a need to have a massive backstory as to why Kurugaya behaved this way, some people are just born like this and, like the rest of this route, it was a refreshing change from the others.
Speaking of a refreshing change, unlike the other character routes I have read apart from Rin1, the OG5 Little Busters have quite a large presence in this route and I think I actually prefer the moments and interactions that they have in this route than in the common route. It is again reinforced how tight knit this lot are and how much they try to support Riki, through the bullying and trying to get him with Kurugaya, which I found really heartwarming, and made me feel even more attached to these characters. (Mild theory stealing time) This makes me feel even more sad because I currently believe in aspects of @MagusVerborum’s theory that he made back in the common route, that everyone apart from maybe Riki and Rin, are in fact dead, and the whole cast seem to be in this sort of dream/purgatory world, which I really hope is not true, but what happens in Kurugaya’s route makes me really think that way and now when I started a new game today and watched the opening, I couldn’t help but shed a tear or two at this possibility.
Another aspect of this route that I loved is Riki having a lot more character in this route than in others where he is a sort of just a problem solver. His feelings insecurity about his manliness/coolness in comparison to Kurugaya, but as a result of his admiration of her, he begins to fall for her, which I found really realistic. Although I still believe that Riki x Mio is my favourite paring (as of now of course), I was really sold on the chemistry and blossoming relationship between Kurugaya and RIki, that the route focuses on a lot more in comparison to others.
And finally some final questions that I hope will be answered in refrain. Which I cannot wait to look back and laugh at how much I overthought things. ( spoilers for Mio, Komari and Haruka routes)
-
Is this date constant? If so what is it’s significance? Is it the day that everyone supposedly ‘dies’ and the time loop first begins? If so, whenever we complete another character route does the time reset take place there or on this date? Do any of the other girls apart from Kurugaya realise that this is the day when the time reset takes place? If so why didn’t they try to fight it as well? If Kurugaya was the only one to realise (perhaps apart from Kyousuke) of this loop, how did she find out? -
Do the girls whose routes we have completed have lingering memories of past loops? If so do they manange to solve the problems on their own? Is that why the choices that lead to a route are locked after completing it?
-
How did Kud kill Kyousuke?
(Finally although I have mentioned a lot about how this route has a lot of positive aspects that the other character routes lack I do want to clarify that I have enjoyed the other routes as they all do serve a purpose of their own.)
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I love all my children but i love this one the most 
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Really agree with this, seeing the group play around and be supportive in helping their friend with his bully and love troubles always made for enjoyable scenes like the scene for choosing what gift to give. I’m currently watching the anime and part of why I like it is what you described since the other LB members are given more screen time even in scenes they weren’t originally in for the VN.
I also agree with how characters like Kurugaya don’t always require complicated backstories or the like to explain their behavior, sometimes less is more.
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Wow, this thread has been inactive for almost a year now 
Oh well, irrespective of that, I’m also going to comment my opinion and theories here since it truly does appear to be the best place to do so.
The first thing I would like to start with is the fact that Kurugaya Yuiko is my favorite character ever and has remained so for the last 6 years, ever since I’ve finished reading her route in 2013. Hers and Riki’s love story is without a doubt my favorite in all of fiction. Over the years I’ve reread Yuiko’s route at least 10 times and Refrain twice.
Second, I’ve managed to read through all 179 comments of this thread - no easy feat, but it was very interesting to see everyone’s perspective, their opinions and theories regarding this incredibly beautiful story, this sad relationship and this unique character.
Third is something extremely important: my theories relate directly to the events in Refrain. They will be extremely spoiler-heavy as, just like many of you have pointed out, Yuiko’s route comes out as incomplete unless the reader already knows “The Secret of the World”. If you have just finished reading Yuiko’s route for the first time and have yet to finish reading Refrain, please…refrain from removing the blur.
By the time I am done with this comment, it will probably end up looking like an essay, but I dare think that if you do reach the end, you will understand the overall story, routes and LB characters better, gain new respect and admiration for what I consider to be the best KEY heroine ever and probably the most beautiful and touching story I have ever read. Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that I have never read Sasami, Kanata and Saya’s routes, as they were not part of the original story and I consider their routes to be pretty much filler.
- The Common Route
Ok, what better way to start than with the ending? I mean it - most routes (Mio, Haruka, Kud, Komari and even Rin) can be perceived as dating sims and can be easily understood without knowing “The Secret of The World”, and at the end of their respective route, Riki has helped each one of them overcome their greatest regret so they can pass on happily - literally, pass on… In their respective routes, all the girls automatically develop feelings of gratitude towards Riki combined with infatuation and end up in a form of romantic relationship with him. Romance in those routes is never something that Riki or the girl pursues - it just happens because… “why not?”? ￣_(ツ)_/￣
Yuiko’s route is the only exception. In her route, all the rules of the natural world collapse and both time and space cease to exist. Basically, her route is a prelude to Refrain, because the same things that will happen in Refrain, happen in her route. Now, as you are already aware, Kyousuke is a huge character, a massive presence throughout the story and has a massive influence over every other character, especially over Riki. His influence is so grand in fact, that he is the one that has the most control over 'The World". Through Kyousuke’s dominance over Riki and Rin’s minds, aided by all the other Little Busters, Riki and Rin are able to relive the same events (Common Route), starting stronger each time, doing things better and not having memories of the previous route that Riki just finished. Each time the Common Route starts, there is that scene with the fireflies above the water that converge at the center point - it’s probably obvious to everyone that those are representations of each character’s consciousness uniting to go back in 'The Dream World" and relive the events of the Common Route. The reason for that is simple: all 8 of the Little Busters are mortally wounded and all of them are aware of their impending demise, so they concentrate their efforts on making Riki and Rin stronger so that the 2 wouldn’t despair at the site of their corpses once they wake up. One would argue that when agreeing to partake in the creation of “The Dream World”, most of the characters were unaware of what was going to happen. It’s not like Komari, Kud, Mio or Haruka planned out to make Riki relive through all their traumas and have him help them overcome said traumas just so that would make him stronger. On the contrary, since, as we learn, there are characters who don’t have a childhood trauma, namely Yuiko who also gets involved in one form or another. You might say that the original plan was to make Riki and Rin stronger just through the Common Route, but it is Riki’s decisions in the Common Route that end up sending him in a particular route, while Rin does follow the original plan of getting stronger and more confident in the Common Route, since she retains her baseball and fighting stats she had in a previous route that Riki finished allowing Rin to further improve to the point where she can hold her own against and even beat Sasami in a fight.
- Character development
The fact that Riki helps the girls get over their past and have what looks to be a peaceful transition to the “afterlife” is pretty much accidental. But all this does not apply to Yuiko as she ends up finding it impossible to accept such a tragic outcome because what she experiences in her route changes her completely. To understand Yuiko’s route, one must first first understand who Yuiko is at the beginning of the story and who she becomes at the end of her route. In the beginning, she appears to be this self-sufficient, very smart, athletic and busty girl who should be the Oujou-sama of the school. She gives the impression of a person who always obtains what she wants from others through any means, even if it’s by force. Riki sees her as someone “dangerous” because of the ease with which Yuiko can bend almost everyone to her will, weather through outsmarting or simply overpowering them. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that she is the strongest female member of the LBs when it comes to physical might alone. Even the boys see her as a force to be reckoned with. Whether it’s for comedic purposes or her nature to hug everything she perceives as cute, Yuiko often leaves the impression of a sexual predator when it comes to the chastity of the other girls and when it comes to teasing Riki. This is mostly because she perceives the things she does as being fun, is aware of the fact that those actions will have little to no consequences to her and also, Yuiko knows that the person she plays her pranks on knows she was kidding. Yuiko appears to have this idea that all male students are perverts to a degree and wants to see Riki manifest himself accordingly, hence the reason she always teases him, but also knows his character really well and she knows there are lines he will almost never cross. That never prevents her from trying, though, because “it’s fun”. Yuiko can afford to make jokes like telling Riki “to scream from the top of your lungs <<Yahoo! Her tits are the best in the world!>>” only because she knows that he is a shy individual and he would almost never do such a thing - it would actually be shocking for everyone if he did do it. It is only when Yuiko’s actions do have consequences, when she becomes more afraid of the idea of losing Riki than of the idea of not being able to respond to his feelings that she realizes her true nature is beginning to show: Yuiko realizes that she is capable of feeling more emotions than she thought, live those emotions at intensities she never considered possible and grow so attached to those feelings that she would fight Kyousuke and Death itself in order to preserve them.
Another unique thing that happens in Yuiko’s route involves Riki, as he actively pursues a relationship with her. While in other routes, Riki is just roped in by the situation, this is where he is actually forced to prove his worth and put in effort for love rather than finally giving up and being together with the girl he had been helping get over a childhood trauma - girls who basically throw themselves at his feet. This serves to prove just how shallow the other girls’ feelings for Riki actually are: the girls never fight against “the resetting” of the world - they compliantly accept it, since as it seemed, overcoming their trauma proved to be more important to them than a relationship with some guy who happened to be Riki. A fun fact is that Yuiko is the only girl Riki never kisses. In all other routes, kissing is almost standard, but not in Yuiko’s. There, instead of sharing a kiss, Yuiko hugs Riki from behind - that is her way of expressing emotion: by hugging. Throughout the Common Route, Yuiko hugs many of the girls as to overpower them and show affection, but when she hugs Riki, it’s different. The hugs they share are more unique, personal and intimate than any of the kisses Riki shares with all the other girls.
I will attempt to explain how I perceived her personality and apparent lack of emotions. This is tricky, because some people only saw the anime, and the anime offers no explanation as to why Yuiko is the way that she is, other people have stated in the comments that she suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, which might be true - I won’t deny - and finally, the Visual Novel talks about another story entirely. According to the VN, Yuiko was born abroad, and judging by the nickname “Elizabeth” and her proficiency in English, the country she was born in was either USA, UK or Canada, maybe even France or Germany (I was tempted to include Korea in the list because of her preference for Kimchi, but people in Korea don’t name their girls “Elizabeth”). Anyway, the actual country is of little importance. What is important though is that she was born from 2 Japanese parents, making her 100% Japanese, just as she stated in the VN. Short observation here: the anime shows a scene where 6-7yo Yuiko was reading a book and along comes Riki to recover a ball - while the scene is cute in a “predestined” sort of way, it did not happen in the VN -> while she and her parents did return to Japan at some point, it is not stated when they did so, leading to my theory. Being born Japanese in a Western country, Yuiko stood out from the rest of the kids her age by looks alone. It is possible that because of this, other kids her age were reluctant to approach and invite her to play with them. On the other side, Yuiko became aware of this, and managed to find other means to fill her time with: like reading books, playing an instrument or dabbling in arts. Because of this, she started to further drift away from society, she became self-sufficient and managed to excel in mostly everything she tried. Things that are so extraordinary for other people (like her talent for drawing/painting and her piano skill) became mundane for her, and being so gifted, it wasn’t long before she started attracting envy and hate from the others. This is probably the main reason why her parents returned to Japan with her: so she would form bonds with her fellow countrymen - unfortunately, the damage had already been done: Yuiko had 0 social skills, did not care about others’ opinion of her, was probably better than them in almost everything, and again, instead of gaining their admiration and friendship, she was treated with indifference and even bullied. The reason why she initially appears cold, inconsiderate and even intimidating in the first days of the VN is because she had already been used to bad treatment from others, and most likely, she responded to them in kind. Although it is stated that she never experienced feelings of love for other people, that is not entirely true. Because we, as the readers, only know about Yuiko as much as she tells Riki, the rest is left to the reader’s imagination. Yuiko always possessed feelings, she was just never aware of that. Nowhere is it stated that she does not love her parents, given that they did for her as much as they could. Furthermore, Yuiko also possesses some forms of negative traits: she is greedy, proud and vengeful - and given her looks and behavior, she entices the lust of other people.
- Bullying
A lot of people have debated about the first event leading in Yuiko’s route: the bullying. Now, this event has several meanings and it ties directly to Riki and the time order in which Yuiko’s route is placed: chronologically, Yuiko’s route is the last in order to occur and it makes sense that Riki is a different character at that point, having retained most of the emotional growth he obtained from completing the previous routes. Riki knows how great Yuiko is, and he is also aware of his own shortcomings, but he wants to prove it to himself that he can solve his bullying problem on his own. If he can’t handle even this, that is definite proof that he didn’t grow at all and he would never be successful in pursuing a relationship with someone like Yuiko. As someone previously mentioned, if Riki reveals his being bullied, this alerts Yuiko into taking care of the girls. This way, she also realizez the “danger” her being part of the LB represents for the other members and leaves just as easily as she came. From Yuiko’s point of view, the bullying was just unfinished business from her first year in high-school. I believe she regretfully used the words “mixing others in my personal affairs” when discussing the issue with Riki after they left the classroom and a bewildered Masato in front of a broken door.
I don’t know if anyone noticed, but Kyousuke almost never helps Riki in other routes, while Yuiko is present in all of them, ready and willing to help Riki and the heroine in question with any piece of advice they might need.
Something about Yuiko that a lot of people seem to have misinterpreted is Yuiko’s so-called “lack of emotions”. That is not true as she does display some forms of emotions throughout the Common Route and at the beginning of her own. You might laugh, but the emotion that she is feeling the most is fear - fear of loss, to be more precise. You hear this from Yuiko herself when she talked about the flowers she picked and how sad she was when they withered. So yeah, that is definite proof that she feels emotions at a very strong level, but only if she allows herself to do so. Yuiko gets extremely invested in the LB group and helps every member that looks up to her.
In some ways, Yuiko and Kyousuke are very similar. Kyousuke, although the eldest of the bunch only wanted to keep on living and keep on enjoying the company of his childhood friends - it is when Refrain is at its end, when he is in tears that he states that. Yuiko’s character is just as tragic in her route’s ending, having to face her own death shortly after discovering what it meant to love and be loved back.
- Not your ally
The key element one should be aware of in Yuiko’s route is that Kyousuke IS NOT your friend or ally - on the contrary, he becomes her greatest enemy. Sure in the beginning it might seem like Kyousuke is playing around and helping Riki get closer to Yuiko, but he secretly wishes for her to turn Riki down. Why would he want that? Because he has a little sister he loves and cares for deeply - because he doesn’t want Riki to have such strong feelings for anyone other than Rin, and mostly because, Yuiko is closer to death than Rin => meaning that if Riki wakes up in the real world and finds Yuiko dying in his arms, he will lose his mind and the collective effort that every LBs member put in would have been wasted. Unfortunately, this is something that Yuiko is also aware of - that is the reason why she postpones answering to Riki’s confession twice: not only is she afraid of not being able to return Riki’s feelings, but is also aware that the situation might escalate out of her control. During that time, Kyousuke is the only one of the guys who tries to convince Riki to give up on Yuiko. After their funny attempts at getting her gifts and Yuiko’s refusal to answer Riki’s first confession, Kyousuke is the first to try and convince Riki to call it quits. But when Riki continues to defy him by implying the lessons that Yuiko taught him and he decides to persevere in his attempt to be with her, Kyousuke ends up having to resort to more drastic measures. Even during Riki and Yuiko’s first date, Kyousuke is the one who literally makes it rain in that world, since rain is the literal manifestation of Kyousuke’s influence over the minds of the other LB members (see what happens during the baseball match between the 4 boys in Refrain). Yuiko is aware of that - she knows that the true nature of the rain in that world is to mess with the mind and induce amnesia. The closer Riki and Yuiko become, the more it rains. Kyousuke is aware of how strong Yuiko is and he is also smart enough to understand just how far she can go to prolong the inevitable. Having confirmed the authenticity of Riki’s feelings for her following his second confession, Yuiko decides to make an attempt at returning those feelings in the best way she can: she spends time with him in the Broadcast room, makes cookies for the both of them to enjoy, she flirts with Riki but most of the time ends up losing whenever he’d say something unexpected, resulting in her turning beat red. Love is a selfish feeling, and nearing the end of her route, Yuiko demonstrates that. She tries everything in her power to prolong her fulfilled dreams of loving and being loved back. Yuiko begins to show signs of forgetting important events regarding her relationship with Riki - this is a sign that Kyousuke’s rain from hers and Riki’s first date is taking effect. The world itself starts to disintegrate around her because of the rain. In a last act of defiance towards Kyousuke and to show Riki that even someone like the two of them can be happy together, Yuiko turns Kyousuke’s June rain into snow. This is also the manifestation of Yuiko’s words “there is a greater possibility of the Earth getting destroyed by an asteroid” than her and Riki having a relationship. With the world disappearing around her, Yuiko’s last bastion remains the Broadcast Room. It is during that time that Yuiko is reminded of her mortality, it is there that she remembers that despite having twisted the fabric of time in that world, she is unable to keep it up, especially after having lost the support of the other LB members (Kyousuke cut them off). It’s ironic how Yuiko is present in all the other routes but all the other girls she helped are missing from her own (they only make a ‘cameo’ in Love-Love Hunters). When entering the Broadcast Room for the last time, Riki is greeted with a sight he probably never thought possible: the sight of an exhausted, defeated girl - not by Kyousuke, but by fate. Having done everything in her power to keep what she thought was her dream alone going, Yuiko understands that her dream will come to an end and that at the end of that dream lies her own death - the so-called “waking up”. While initially appearing to have had a pretty laid back attitude about mortality up until that point, it is only after discovering love and the perspective of losing those feelings that end up crushing Yuiko with regret. The hug they share, the tears they shed and Riki’s reassurance that what they lived was not Yuiko’s dream alone, but also his, made it for one of the most beautiful and touching works of fiction I have ever read. In my mind, the True Ending of Yuiko’s route, the one where she confesses to Riki in the real world using the same words he used to confess to her, that is the end of the entire Little Busters VN. Maybe Riki did end up with Rin after Refrain, but it never worked out between them. Maybe Riki always remembered that wish he and Yuiko made to not forget the feelings they had for each other while in “their dream” - it is obvious, at the end of Refrain that Yuiko did not forget.
Well, that was a long read… I am still not entirely satisfied with how everything turned out but it’s almost 00:00 and I’ll probably add more info later. Tomorrow, idk… Anyway, this is why I feel that Yuiko is the most underrated LB heroine, the one who has been denied a proper anime adaptation of her route, the one that, just like Kyou from Clannad, deserved an After-Story, the one who has been wrongfully perceived by most KEY fans as being shallow, insignificant and forgetful because not everyone could look past her mischievous nature and provocative body. I have all the respect and admiration for the editors for bringing such an amazing character “to life”, for telling such an amazing story and for giving me, what has been for the past 6 years and what will definitely forever be, my favorite character in all of fiction.
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